Patterico's Pontifications

2/28/2015

Of All The Books In All The World, Holder Chose This One

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:00 am



[guest post by Dana]

In an exit interview, Eric Holder was asked which book he would recommend to a young person coming to Washington. His choice was “The Autobiography of Malcom X”.

Holder explained:

“I say this not to every African-American of his age, but for every American, that you read ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ to see the transition that that man went through, from petty criminal to a person who was severely and negatively afflicted by race, to somebody who ultimately saw the humanity in all of us,” Holder said. “And that would be a book I would recommend to everybody.”

It’s not a surprise he chose this book, after all, fighing against racism has been at the top of his priority list since becoming Attorney General. Further, those who know him, have explained that “he is a race man”.

But seriously, if you had to choose the definitive book to encourage a young person who was heading to Washington, what would it be and why?

–Dana

60 Responses to “Of All The Books In All The World, Holder Chose This One”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (86e864)

  2. The Constitution and The Federalist Papers.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  3. Especially Federalist No. 10.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  4. Now that’s just crazy talk, DRJ.

    Dana (86e864)

  5. Good choice DRJ.

    njrob (4bee3c)

  6. El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz occupies an exalted perch in the fascist imagination

    “the transition that that man went through” is … he became an America-hating muslim

    what other book could Holder possibly choose really

    happyfeet (831175)

  7. Holder should read Federalist No. 51.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  8. Jay Winik’s the Great Upheaval, it’s a comparative history of the US, the French Revolutions, and an attempt at an liberal one in Russia,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  9. I know it’s considered passe around these parts, but I’d still recommend Atlas Shrugged as it really speaks to the times we are living in. How’s our Anti-Dog Eat Dog world working out with the government deciding what’s best for all.

    njrob (4bee3c)

  10. “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”

    It teaches realism, focus, attentiveness and discernment, among other things.

    nk (dbc370)

  11. whaa?

    the fish are white and gold

    happyfeet (831175)

  12. Hmm, “realism” is not a word I like except in paintings. What’s a good word for “get to what’s real”?

    nk (dbc370)

  13. have explained that “he is a race man”.

    If leftism were a race (or “race”) that ultimately would be the only race he’d give a damn about.

    if you had to choose the definitive book to encourage a young person who was heading to Washington, what would it be and why?

    I don’t know if there’s any definitive book out there (although such a tome would presumably be from an author delving into human psychology) that probes the basic nature of the following, but “do-gooders” in particular (generally all of the left) should be aware of this reality 24/7, 365 days a year:

    rt.com, October 2014: Less well-off families from red states donate a relatively higher – and growing – proportion of their money to charity, while those at the top have been giving a smaller share as their income has increased, a new extensive study has revealed.

    Respected non-government sector newspaper The Philanthropy Chronicle collated the itemized charity deductions on the tax returns of hundreds of millions of Americans between 2006 and 2012, the latest year available. While only about a third of all givers write off their charity expenses, the sums included about 80 percent of all donations in the country.

    In an even starker finding, the study shows that the religious and conservative states are the most generous givers. Seventeen of the most generous states, in relative terms, voted for Romney in 2012, while 15 of the 17 least generous ones picked Obama for re-election. This may expose a correlation between conservative voters believing that redistribution is something that should be done out of their own pocket, not by the government.

    Not coincidentally, the most generous state is Utah (with a giving rate of 6.56 percent), which is dominated by Mormons, who have to give a tenth of their income to their church. On the other side of the scale is New Hampshire, where less than a third of the people say they believe in God, and which donates 1.74 percent of its incomes to charity.

    Similarly, the cosmopolitan, urbane San Francisco and Boston are at the bottom of a similar ranking for cities, while the Southern and Central strongholds of Salt, Lake City, Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville and Atlanta are among some of the most generous.

    Mark (c160ec)

  14. “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce. For the clarity.

    mojo (a3d457)

  15. It’s striking that Holder values Malcolm X’s story over Martin Luther King’s.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  16. Any of those would be superior recommendations.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  17. Wherever there are still axes to grind, young children to be indoctrinated and steeped in a sense of their own victimhood and productive people to be shaken down, there you will find people like Eric Holder.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  18. But seriously, if you had to choose the definitive book to encourage a young person who was heading to Washington, what would it be and why?

    The Dice Man, by Luke Reinhart. It would improve their decision making.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  19. Ball Four
    It changed everything!

    mg (31009b)

  20. Mr. Holder? Hello? You were not oppressed by The Man. You were The Man!

    nk (dbc370)

  21. If one was going to insist on a book about the black experience, I would suggest “My Grandfather’s Son, ” by Clarence Thomas. I suggested it to both my younger daughters.

    Anything by Thomas Sowell would be good.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  22. Under three things the earth quakes, And under four, it cannot bear up: Under a slave when he becomes king, And a fool when he is satisfied with food, Under an unloved woman when she gets a husband, And a maidservant when she supplants her mistress.

    nk (dbc370)

  23. Didn’t change the mullions or the scunions, mg!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  24. Benjamin Franklin- An American Life by Walter Isaacson

    Franklin was a brilliant original thinker whose genius lay less in profound thoughts than in his practical ideas and homely wisdom. As he rose in station from impoverished printer’s apprentice to venerable statesman and man of means, he hobnobbed with aristocrats, royals, and some of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment; but he never lost touch with the common man whose standard he carried proudly throughout his long, eventful life.
    What emerges …. is the fascinating portrait of a flawed and complicated man: a canny charmer, a brilliant inventor, a gifted diplomat, and a public-spirited citizen, but most of all a passionate populist with an unwavering faith in the wisdom of his fellow citizens… (Anne Markowski)

    This book subtly forces us to notice the kinds of things that are missing in our politics and politicians today.

    elissa (6050b4)

  25. http://www.amazon.com/The-Birth-Modern-Society-1815-1830/dp/1455158127

    Paul Johnson, a Brit, understands American Exceptionalism. Our leaders need to relearn it.

    Steven Malynn (b2805a)

  26. By any means necessary! When dr. samuel johnson was asked by boswell what he thought of the american revolution going on at the time he said. I observe those who scream the the loudest about freedom and libert are the slave holding southerners. Somethings never change!

    truther (0ae7ac)

  27. “I observe those who scream the the loudest about freedom and libert are the slave holding southerners. Somethings never change!”

    truther – Democrats are still trying to keep black people on the plantation even though they cannot legally own them any more, so there is some truth to your observation.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  28. From Mark Twain’s Running for Governor

    “By this time there had grown to be such a clamor for an “answer” to all the dreadful charges that were laid to me that the editors and leaders of my party said it would be political ruin for me to remain silent any longer. As if to make their appeal the more imperative, the following appeared in one of the papers the very next day:

    BEHOLD THE MAN! — The Independent candidate still maintains Silence. Because he dare not speak. Every accusation against him has been amply proved, and they have been endorsed and re-endorsed by his own eloquent silence till at this day he stands forever convicted. Look upon your candidate, Independents! Look upon the Infamous Perjurer! the Montana Thief! the Body-Snatcher! Contemplate your incarnate Delirium Tremens! your Filthy Corruptionist! your Loath some Embracer! Gaze upon him — ponder him well — and then say if you can give your honest votes to a creature who has earned this dismal array of titles by his hideous crimes, and dares not open his mouth in denial of any one of them!

    There was no possible way of getting out of it, and so, in deep humiliation, I set about preparing to “answer” a mass of baseless charges and mean and wicked falsehoods. But I never finished the task, for the very next morning a paper came out with a new horror, a fresh malignity, and seriously charged me with burning a lunatic asylum with all its inmates because it obstructed the view from my house. This threw me into a sort of panic. Then came the charge of poisoning my uncle to get his property, with an imperative demand that the grave should be opened. This drove me to the verge of distraction. On top of this I was accused of employing toothless and incompetent old relatives to prepare the food for the foundling hospital when I was warden. I was wavering — wavering. And at last, as a due and fitting climax to the shameless persecution that party rancor had inflicted upon me, nine little toddling children of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness were taught to rush on to the platform at a public meeting and clasp me around the legs and call me PA!

    I gave up. I hauled down my colors and surrendered. I was not equal to the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the State of New York, and so I sent in my withdrawal from the candidacy, and in bitterness of spirit signed it,

    “Truly yours,

    “Once a decent man, but now
    “MARK TWAIN

    steveg (794291)

  29. “truther – Democrats are still trying to keep black people on the plantation even though they cannot legally own them any more, so there is some truth to your observation.”

    This is a comment to a post about attorney general Eric Holder and the Autobiography of Malcom X?

    sing (bbbfe8)

  30. so things really haven’t changed in a 140 years, re Twain

    narciso (ee1f88)

  31. Holder is an ass and a clueless one to boot. In his interview he was extremely critical of his predecessor Albert Gonzales, yet later went on to claim that criticism of him was racist. Given that people in high places are naturally subject to criticism, what makes criticism of Holder racist while his criticism of Gonzales is not?

    Thresherman (dcd9d2)

  32. 2. The Constitution and The Federalist Papers.
    DRJ (e80d46) — 2/28/2015 @ 10:06 am

    3. Especially Federalist No. 10.
    DRJ (e80d46) — 2/28/2015 @ 10:11 am

    Shhh! Don’t say that too loudly, DRJ. According to the latest DoJ report on terrorism, the major threat isn’t Islamic random individual terrorism. It’s right wing terrorism. And the DoJ advises law enforcement that they can spot right wing terrorists by, among other signs of evil, their talk about the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other founding documents.

    If you keep going on about the Constitution and the Federalist Papers you’ll get yourself on a watchlist.

    Steve57 (4fafea)

  33. 31. Remember, in the leftist dictionary, the definition of racist is “a white person”, war is peace and Eastasia has always been our enemy.

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  34. Get them started with The Pirate Coast to bring them up to date on current events.

    Give them a few more chuckles with What Do You Care What Other People Think? as this will help them understand why things are so screwed up.

    Followed by Road to Serfdom which will caution them about the dangers of good intentions.

    Finish up with The Thomas Sowell Reader as this will give them hope that we can get out of current predicament by thinking logically about our problems.

    bobathome (f208b6)

  35. Look, if we’re going to be honest then we have to say Eric Holder is a racist. Black racists even have a racist definition of racism. Black racists can’t be racists because of their race. Whites are always racist because of their race.

    That suits the race obsessed left because in their hypocrisy they approve of certain forms of racism. So it’s no surprise that he’d recommend the biography of Malcolm X as required reading.

    …For much of his life, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. carried around something peculiar. While most people keep cash, family photos, and credit cards in their wallets, Holder revealed to a reporter in 1996 that he keeps with him an old clipping of a quote from Harlem preacher Reverend Samuel D. Proctor. Holder put the clipping in his wallet in 1971, when he was studying history at Columbia University, and kept it in wallet after wallet over the ensuing decades.

    What were Proctor’s words that Holder found so compelling?

    “Blackness is another issue entirely apart from class in America. No matter how affluent, educated and mobile [a black person] becomes, his race defines him more particularly than anything else. Black people have a common cause that requires attending to, and this cause does not allow for the rigid class separation that is the luxury of American whites. There is a sense in which every black man is as far from liberation as the weakest one if his weakness is attributable to racial injustice.”

    When asked to explain the passage, Holder replied, “It really says that … I am not the tall U.S. attorney, I am not the thin United States attorney. I am the black United States attorney. And he was saying that no matter how successful you are, there’s a common cause that bonds the black United States attorney with the black criminal or the black doctor with the black homeless person.”

    Has anyone ever asked Holder what exactly is the “common cause” that binds the black attorney general and the black criminal?

    Read more: http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/07/12/whats-in-holders-wallet-his-real-race-card/#ixzz3T4o859JV

    This is the AG that refused to prosecute the Black Panthers to the point where he dropped the case even after it was won. And when questioned by Congress referred to them as “my people.”

    If we have an objective definition of racism, that is pure, unadulterated racism.

    Steve57 (4fafea)

  36. Twain’s “What Is Man”

    wtp (1fa689)

  37. Col – I remember someone yelled from the dugout “F-U- Shakespeare”, whenever Bouton was pitching against them.

    mg (31009b)

  38. 34… good picks, Bob!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  39. Look at this latest nonsense from Eric Holder. First some background.

    http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/21/politics/holder-activist/index.html

    Attorney General Eric Holder is spending his remaining time in office as an activist for civil rights and social justice issues, ranging from gay rights to changing sentencing laws for non-violent crimes.

    …”I’ve had some days that have been better than others,” Holder told CNN in a November interview. But added that now, “There’s the ability to focus on issues now that really matter to me.”…

    So after that we are supposed to believe this.

    Attorney General Eric Holder plans to push, during his final weeks in office, a new standard of proof for civil-rights offenses, saying in an exit interview with POLITICO that such a change would make the federal government “a better backstop” against discrimination in cases like Ferguson and Trayvon Martin.

    …Asked if the bar for federal involvement in the civil rights offenses is too high for federal prosecutors to make cases in shootings like those of Martin and Brown, Holder suggested it was.

    “I think that if we adjust those standards, we can make the federal government a better backstop — make us more a part of the process in an appropriate way to reassure the American people that decisions are made by people who are really disinterested,” he said. “I think that if we make those adjustments, we will have that capacity.”…

    Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/eric-holder-civil-rights-interview-mike-allen-115575.html#ixzz3T4qq089K

    There’s no other way to say it; Eric Holder, the self-proclaimed leftist social justice warrior, wants to make it easier to prosecute whites for non-crimes against blacks. We know this how? Because we have ample evidence that under Holder his voting rights division refused to prosecute cases in which black voting officials disenfranchised whites. Voting rights laws exist to protect minorities against whites, not the other way around.

    And this activist AG who put his finger on the scale during his entire tenure has the chutzpah to say that lowering the bar to make it easier to railroad people would reassure the American people that the DoJ is acting as a “disinterested” party.

    Only a very biased party would even suggest changing the law.

    Steve57 (4fafea)

  40. and the senator Sarah Palin gave us, one Mr. Orrin Hatch, he couldn’t confirm Eric Holder’s fascist trollop of a successor fast enough

    America’s ruling class it sucks something

    I’m trying to think what

    happyfeet (831175)

  41. “This is a comment to a post about attorney general Eric Holder and the Autobiography of Malcom X?”

    sing – It was a reply to truther’s comment on the subject? What is your issue?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  42. Why would I want to encourage someone going to DC? They’ve already made more than

    one major mistake and probably more.

    We need to shift the focus in this country to the states and the people and DC should

    be focusing on them and not the reverse.

    jakee308 (49ccc6)

  43. i love that comment Mr. 308 person that’s a very good point

    happyfeet (831175)

  44. Facing the Dragon: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity By Robert L. Moore

    http://www.robertmoore-phd.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=50&ParentCat=11

    But really, there are so many. All Men Are Brothers, M.K.Gandhi. Inner Work, Robert A. Johnson. Ultimate Voyage: A Book of Five Mariners, by William Gilkerson.

    Malcom X might be in my list of 100. First or only, no.

    htom (4ca1fa)

  45. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer. In particular, a quote by Goering on the eve of the 1933 elections:

    “Fellow Germans, my thinking will not be crippled by any judicial thinking – I don’t have to worry about justice; my mission is only to destroy and exterminate, nothing more! – Certainly I shall use the power of the State and the police to the utmost, my dear communists, so don’t draw any false conclusions; but the struggle to the death, in which my fist will grasp your necks, I shall lead with those down there – the Brownshirts.”

    If the young person heading for Washington has any sense of history, they will already know that the book is a cautionary tale.

    PPs43 (6fdef4)

  46. “Nineteen Eighty-Four” By George Orwell
    “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith.

    Choose one.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  47. mg… I had a friend who was the visiting team locker room manager at Angel’s Stadium (before he moved up to the home team slot) and the stories he would tell us back then were often hilarious, but the lack of respect for women was not so good.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  48. yes Col. those were the days, my dad coached a kid who became a well known baseball G.M. and the things I heard are non-repeatable on these pages.

    mg (31009b)

  49. #34: Thanks Colonel! I’d thought about recommending “Nothing Like it the World”, or “Freedom’s Forge”, but I think the idea that nasty capitalists managed to bridge the continent in a handful of years with railroad tracks and then they had the nerve to follow this up by producing B-24s and Sherman Tanks (aka Bronson lighters) with the same tempo as Ford pickups in order to crush two opponents who were smashing the rest of the world in WWII, would have left most recent high school graduates comatose with a case of irresolvable cognitive dissonance.

    Better to let them chuckle that a Nobel Laureate in Physics (that would be Feynman) was the only member of the State Board to actually read the tripe the publishers were going to force onto California’s hapless students. The “professional” educators couldn’t be bothered. But then again, if they graduated from “teachers colleges” (now called “Universities”), they wouldn’t have been able to read the books anyway. The anecdote about one publisher’s hookers meeting up with Feynman in an elevator in San Francisco (if memory serves) would only add a bit of humanity to the entire fiasco.

    bobathome (f208b6)

  50. Art of War, Sun Tzu.

    sing (bbbfe8)

  51. Bill Jensen’s book “Simplicity”.

    LTMG (94c4c3)

  52. All the King’s Men

    Leviticus (ffa156)

  53. My Side of the Mountain

    happyfeet (831175)

  54. The Autobiography of Malcom X is an important book, but I don’t believe Eric Holder has read it, not all of it anyway. It’s got something of an O’Henry ending and challenges most of what Holder stands for. It fact it’s a repudiation of him, Louis Farrakahan, Jeremiah Wright, and Barack Obama.

    It’s been quite a while since I read Malcom’s autobiography (published posthumously) but I do recall that he’d joined the Nation of Islam (NOI) while doing an 8 to 10 year stretch (for Larceny – B&E) in the Charlestown State Pen (Incarcerated in February 1946 – Paroled in August 1954) where his attitude and behavior earned him the nickname among fellow inmates as Satan.

    (Unless otherwise noted, quotes and background information largely from Wikipedia)

    On his release Malcolm joined NOI’s founder, Elijah Muhammad, in Chicago and was soon appointed Assistant Minister of the NOI’s Detroit Temple #1 and assigned the task of recruiting new members. That same year he opened a new Temple in Boston, and in March of the following year he expanded Philadelphia’s Temple #12. Two months later he was selected to lead Temple #7 in Harlem. The next year he opened 3 more Temples: Springfield, Massachusetts; Hartford, Connecticut; and Atlanta, Georgia.

    During 1955, Malcolm continued his astonishingly successful recruitment efforts. Tall and handsome, well groomed, well dressed, and with impressive speaking skills, (Sound a bit familar?) he quickly attracted many thousands of new members. From the mid ’50s to the mid ’60s NOI membership grew from about 500 to over 25,000, some estimates put it as high as 50 to 75,000. A feather in his cap, Malcom recruited boxer Cassius Clay into the NOI and renamed him Muhammad Ali.

    From Wikipedia:

    From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he broke with it in 1964, Malcolm X promoted the Nation’s teachings. These included the beliefs:

    that black people are the original people of the world
    that white people are “devils”
    that blacks are superior to whites
    that the demise of the white race is imminent.

    Many whites and some blacks were alarmed by Malcolm X and the things he said during this period. He and the Nation of Islam were described as hatemongers, black supremacists, racists, violence-seekers, segregationists, and a threat to improved race relations. He was accused of being antisemitic. One of the goals of the civil rights movement was to end disfranchisement of African Americans, but the Nation of Islam forbade its members from participating in the political process. Civil rights organizations denounced him and the Nation as irresponsible extremists whose views did not represent African Americans.

    Malcolm X was equally critical of the civil rights movement. He labeled Martin Luther King, Jr. a “chump” and other civil rights leaders “stooges” of the white establishment. He called the 1963 March on Washington “the farce on Washington”, and said he did not know why so many black people were excited about a demonstration “run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn’t like us when he was alive”

    By 1960 Malcom’s provocative opinions and his fiery denunciations had attracted worldwide attention. He was invited to official UN functions hosted by several African member states. He met Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Guinea’s Ahmed Sekou Toure, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian National Congress. Fidel Castro met with him privately and invited him to visit Cuba.

    However, in the face of Malcom’s international notoriety and his list of achievements, ominous storm clouds were gathering in the offing. Elijah Muhammad was clearly jealous of his protege’s string of successes, and Malcom was becoming evermore disillusioned by persistent rumors of Elijah Muhammad’s extramarital affairs with young NOI secretaries – which was a serious breach of the Nation’s fundamental teachings. Malcom’s investigations revealed the rumors were true although Elijah Muhammad attempted to justify his predatory behavior by citing biblical precedents.

    By 1963, Malcom’s stature had grown to the point it become a threat to Elijah Muhammad’s leadership. Publishers were interested in Malcom’s upcoming autobiography and the tight circle of established Black Muslim leaders centered around and dedicated to protecting Elijah Muhammad feared Malcom’s autobiography would be the vehicle for Malcom’s eventual takeover of NOI. Additionally, they saw Louis Lomax’s book on the NOI, When the Word is Given, as a harbinger of Malcom’s certain ascension. Although Lomax’s book was intended to publicize the NOI, it featured Malcom’s picture on the cover and included 5 of his speeches and only 1 by Elijah Muhammad, which created an uproar of anger, envy, and jealousy.

    Ironically, it was the assassination of President John F Kennedy which gave NOI conspirators their opportunity to silence Malcom. 10 dsys after Kennedy was killed, Malcom was asked to comment on the assassination, he said Kennedy’s murder was a case of “chickens coming home to roost”. He unfortunately added that “chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.”

    The New York Times wrote, “in further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this year in a Birmingham church. These, he said, were instances of other ‘chickens coming home to roost’.” The remarks prompted a widespread public outcry. The Nation of Islam, which had sent a message of condolence to the Kennedy family and ordered its ministers not to comment on the assassination, publicly censured their former shining star. Although Malcolm X retained his post and rank as minister, he was prohibited from public speaking for 90 days.

    After observing his period of silence, on March 8, 1964, Malcolm X announced his break with the NOI. Although he would remain a Muslim, he recognized the NOI’s rigid teaching restricted it’s future utility. He planned to organize a new black nationalist political organization to “raise black political consciousness” and announced his sincere desire to cooperate with the very civil rights leaders he had so often and so unkindly denigrated. Malcom blamed Elijah Muhammad for preventing him from doing so previously, although the ugly tenor and personal denunciations of his many previous pronouncements indicated a simmering personal animosity.

    However, in the spirit of a new unity, Malcom met briefly with Martin Luther King, Jr for the first and only time for a photo op as both men observed the Senate debate on the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Bill. Later, in April, Malcolm X gave his famous speech titled “The Ballot or the Bullet” where he advised American Negros to organize and vote but warned that if illegitimate legislation prevented Negro citizens from achieving equality with whites, it might become necessary to take up arms.

    That speech sealed Malcom’s fate. Lyndon Johnson had assumed the presidency on JFK’s death and would face election for POTUS on his own in only 7 short months. The last thing LBJ needed was a unified Civil Rights Coalition opposing his escalation of the War in Vietnam or questioning his role in JFK’s assassination. J Edgar Hoover’s FBI was already far advanced in it’s illegal pogrom to divide the nation and undermine MLK, and Hoover’s Gestapo now turned it’s malevolent attention to the crucial task of neutralizing Malcom X.

    The secret deal was consummated. Birds of a feather agreed – Malcom must die. The unholy cabal turned their backs, put Malcom in the cross hairs, and abandoned him to JFK’s fate. (MLK and RFK would soon follow). As NOI’s conflict with Malcom intensified his life was repeatedly threatened. In February his car was bombed, in March Elijah Muhammad told Louis X (later known as Louis Farrakhan) that “hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off.” The April edition of NOI’s newspaper, Muhammad Speaks, carried a cartoon of Malcolm X’s severed head bouncing along.

    On the 8th of June, FBI surveillance recorded a threatening call to Malcom’s wife that her husband was “as good as dead.” On June 12th an FBI informant reported that “Malcolm X is going to be bumped off.” NOI went to court attempting to claim Malcolm’s residence in Queens, NY. His family was ordered to vacate but on February 14, 1965, ​the night before a hearing on postponing the eviction ​the house was fire bombed and totally destroyed.

    On July 9th 1965, Elijah Muhammad’s aide, John Ali, (an undercover FBI agent) referred to Malcolm X by saying, “Anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life in jeopardy.” In the December 4th issue of Muhammad Speaks, Louis X (Farrakhan) wrote that “such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death.” The September 1964 issue of Ebony magazine had dramatized Malcolm’s brave defiance of these multiple threats by publishing an iconic photograph of him holding a rifle (30 cal. carbine w/banana clip) standing guard at the window of his home with his family inside.

    During this dangerous time several influential Sunni Muslims encouraged Malcolm to learn about the true tenets of Islam and not to be deceived by the bastardized beliefs of Elijah Muhammad’s NOI. Consequently, in April of 1964 Malcom went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on his obligatory hajj – the pilgrimage to Mecca for all Muslims able to do so. After overcoming US State Department efforts to obstruct his pilgrimage, Malcom was informed the Saudi government had awarded him the status of an official guest of state, and after his hajj was completed Malcom was granted an audience with Prince Faisal.

    The Hajj changed Malcom’s life. He wrote the following during his pilgrimage to Mecca in April of 1964:

    “There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.

    You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.

    During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug)-while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of the blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the ‘white’ Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana.

    We are truly all the same-brothers.

    On February 21st, 1965, as Malcolm X was preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom someone in the audience yelled, “Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!”

    As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun; two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns. Malcolm X was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm, shortly after arriving at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. The autopsy identified 21 gunshot wounds to the chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including ten buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast

    John Ali, National Secretary of the Nation of Islam (and as an FBI undercover agent) had been previously described by Malcolm to news reporters as responsible for exacerbating tensions between him and Elijah Muhammad. Malcom clearly identified Ali as his “archenemy” within NOI leadership. And, it was later confirmed that Ali held a secret meeting with Malcom’s assassin, Talmadge Hayer, (later convicted of killing Malcolm) on the night before the murder.

    Malcom’s family pointed the finger directly at Louis Farrakhan. And in a 1993 speech Farrakhan acknowledged that the NOI was responsible:

    Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats.

    Later, In a May 2000 60 Minutes interview, Farrakhan also admitted that some things he said may have led to the assassination of Malcolm X.

    “I may have been complicit in words that I spoke”, he said. “I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being.” A few days later Farrakhan denied that he “ordered the assassination” of Malcolm X, although he again acknowledged that he “created the atmosphere that ultimately led to Malcolm X’s assassination.”

    In the end, Malcom X had evolved from the angry criminal preaching racial hatred who was released from prison in 1954 and had come to see beyond the confines of racial differences to acknowledge that light skin, blond hair and blue green eyes didn’t automatically define the limits of humanity.

    And, as a consequence, Malcom was gunned down in cold blood in public to send a strong message, just like JFK, and just like the others who would follow him: MLK and RFK, and for exactly the same reasons. He represented the possibility of a challenge to LBJ’s prevailing establishment power structure. And, ultimately for exactly the same reasons that nearly 48 years later Obama and Hillary blamed the orchestrated murders in Benghazi on an obscure video tape.

    ropelight (43464f)

  55. The Martian Way by Isaac Asimov. It’s a novella actually, and in books appears combined with other stories.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_Way

    Unfortunately, Barack Obama appears to have read the first third of The Foundation instead.

    Sammy Finkelman (a551ff)

  56. Catch-22. – for the insanity of it all.

    Otto Maddox (990b3b)

  57. “The Autobiography of Malcom X is an important book, but I don’t believe Eric Holder has read it, not all of it anyway. It’s got something of an O’Henry ending and challenges most of what Holder stands for. It fact it’s a repudiation of him, Louis Farrakahan, Jeremiah Wright, and Barack Obama.”

    Here’s what Holder said:

    “I say this not to every African-American of his age, but for every American, that you read ‘The Autobiography of Malcolm X’ to see the transition that that man went through, from petty criminal to a person who was severely and negatively afflicted by race, to somebody who ultimately saw the humanity in all of us,”

    Maybe it’s a repudiation of how some view Holder?

    sing (bbbfe8)

  58. @56, I recommend this, for the insanity of it all.

    http://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf

    Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans:
    Background and Issues for Congress

    Hot off the presses as of 24 February 2015. If Congressional Research Service reports are your sort of thing this one is a real tearjerker. Some low lights:

    …In particular, the Navy projects that the fleet would experience a shortfall in amphibious ships from FY2015 through FY2017, a shortfall in small surface combatants from FY2015 through FY2027, and a shortfall in attack submarines from FY2025 through FY2034.

    …If one or more Navy ship designs turn out to be more expensive to build than the Navy estimates, then the projected funding levels shown in the 30-year shipbuilding plan will not be sufficient to procure all the ships shown in the plan.

    Navy procurement programs are always more expensive then originally estimated. Always. So the planned shortfall will grow larger when reality hits. There is some comedic relief toward the end of the report.

    …Some observers, noting the U.S. strategic rebalancing toward the Asia-Pacific region, have advocated shifting a greater share of the DOD budget to the Navy and Air Force, on the grounds that the Asia-Pacific region is primarily a maritime and aerospace theater for DOD.

    Bwahahaha! Hasn’t everyone figured out by now that President “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” was lying when he claimed the US was going to “pivot” to Asia (how many times has Prom Queen talked about pivoting to jobs). Our citizen of the world Preezy made one campaign promise I believed. He promised he was going to end our bad “habits” that keep leading us to enter wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. That I took to mean ending America’s ability to maintain the military and naval forces that enable us to even contemplate it.

    The “pivot” to Asia was just a smokescreen to hide his intended retreat to domestic spending on bloated new entitlements, unrestricted unskilled illegal immigration to grow those programs, crippling the US economy, and send us further spiraling into debt.

    In once sense we really are going to keep the plan this time. Unlike his Obamacare promise. If by plan you mean PLAN; the People’s Liberation Army Navy. This debtor nation’s pivot to Asia will amount to paying to build up our Chinese creditor’s navy.

    My review of this CRS report? I cried, I laughed, I experienced the full range of human emotion.

    Steve57 (1640d5)

  59. But seriously, if you had to choose the definitive book to encourage a young person who was heading to Washington, what would it be and why?

    DRJ: The Constitution and The Federalist Papers.

    By “Heading to Washington”, I’ll presume it’s for work, somehow connected to government — either for an ancilliary firm or for the government itself.

    If you’re doing that, I think it’s a given you should long since have read The Constitution and The Federalist Papers…

    As a result of that inherent presumption, my own nomination would be for P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores. But only because of that.

    IGotBupkis, "Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses." (225d0d)


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